U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,544 discloses a MAMMOTOME® brand of surgical biopsy device which is considered to be somewhat related to the present invention as the surgical biopsy device has a piercer having a piercer tube with a tissue receiving side port located on the side of the distal end of the piercer tube for receiving tissue to be excised from a surgical patient. A tissue sample is drawn through the side port with the assistance of a vacuum and a cutter is then actuated to sever the tissue sample. Accordingly, the side port can be utilized to take a rotationally oriented tissue sample from the tissue surrounding the surgical biopsy device by rotationally orienting the surgical biopsy device with respect to the surrounding tissue of the surgical patient.
There are two primary approaches to removing tissue from a breast. One approach removes the mass in one or two large pieces, and the other approach removes the mass in multiple pieces (minimum of three pieces).
Devices which may be suitable to remove the mass in a single piece are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,077,231, 6,165,137 and 6,213,957, and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,080,113.
Devices intended to remove a mass in a single piece can include one or more disadvantages. For instance, such devices can result in bleeding, and do not provide effective means (e.g. a vacuum to evacuate blood and other fluids from the site) to quickly and effectively manage bleeding as vessels are severed. Such devices may allow only a single cylinder of tissue to be excised from the breast. Moreover, due to the irregular morphology of most breast cancers, it is often difficult to fully encompass the lesion without utilizing an excessively large diameter cutter.
Such devices may be used to remove an excised cylinder of tissue, however the excised tissue sample may not be oriented rotationally with respect to the breast. Thus if additional tissue must be removed, there is no indication of the orientation of the additional tissue with respect to the breast. Such devices can also involve an excessive number of procedural steps, requiring in excess of forty procedural steps.